


perish the thought

by Engineer104



Series: Fluff(?)cember Power Hour (or Month) [8]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Insecurity, Light Angst, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27890866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: Annette lies awake at night reflecting on how her and Felix's relationship began.For Fluffcember Day 22: "Reminiscing"
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Fluff(?)cember Power Hour (or Month) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035183
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	perish the thought

**Author's Note:**

> another too long to post in screenshots on Twitter, and this one is SO corny too

Annette often lay awake at night, unable to sleep for the thoughts consuming her mind. In her school days she fretted over exams and feared oversleeping and missing the first day of a new class. She rehearsed lines and imagined her own righteous fury when she finally faced her father again. 

She considered what she would eat for breakfast, what she would wear, what letters she should write. More often, and more recently, looming battles plagued her, wondering which old classmate or friend she would face as an enemy, and which ally she might soon see alive and well for the last time. 

Absurdly tonight it was an embarrassing incident that kept her from sinking into dreams. She recalled it perfectly, watering tomato plants in the monastery greenhouse, lost in thought and singing to make it a little more fun, and spinning around to find Felix. 

It didn’t matter that his steady breaths now whispered over the back of her neck, his arms snug around her, her lips faintly tingling from the last kiss they shared. That...incident five years ago still made her insides squirm with humiliation. 

Funny to think it might’ve led them to this point, this sort of...wartime dalliance. 

And therein lay the problem: that Annette didn’t want this to remain a wartime dalliance, but she was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason Felix...liked her was for her singing. 

He’d never _said_ so, of course, but every time she reflected on the whole process since that first moment in the greenhouse to _this_ , she worried. 

Did they even have anything in common? Felix trained, Annette studied. He hated sweets, she loved them. He pushed his family away, she fought to stitch hers back together…

She sang, he listened. 

What if the war ended, and they drifted apart? (She refused to think something might end it all more abruptly.)

Before she could think better of it, Annette turned towards him, patted his cheek, and hissed, “Felix?”

He stirred easily, breath stuttering and his arms tightening around her before his eyes shot open. He sat up in a rush, nearly shoving her away from him as he reached for his sword and—

“Wait, wait,” Annette said. She grabbed his arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to...there’s no alarm or anything.”

Felix blinked at her before sagging. He rubbed his face and said, “You woke me?” Then he lifted his gaze, eyes narrowing. “You’re still awake.”

She smiled sheepishly, her stomach flipping now that he was awake and she could ask him...what?

“What’s wrong?” he wondered. 

It should relieve her how quickly he noticed, but it only made her insides squirm worse. She wrung her blanket, picking at a loose thread on the border. 

Felix stilled her hands, covering them with his own. She froze, suddenly too nervous to look at him, when he said, “You did have a reason for waking me up, right?”

“Um…”

“Was it another nightmare?” he asked. When she shook her head, he sighed. “Then what’s wrong?”

“Do you really like me?” Annette blurted in a rush. 

His fingers tightened around her hands, but he didn’t recoil. “What?”

“I-I mean, I’m sure you think you like me,” she explained, “because why else would you want me to sleep with—sleep here, or spend any time with me, or—”

“Annette.” The drowsiness in his voice filled her with a warmth and guilt in equal measure as she raised her eyes to his face. “I...yes, I’m sure,” he said.

He sounded flustered, but it was too dark to see if he blushed. 

“But, I, well...why?” she wondered. 

“Why what?”

“ _Why_ do you like me?” she said. “Is it just because of my singing? Because I know that’s how it started, a-and we don’t really have anything in common, so I’m worried that whatever we have now won’t—”

Annette cut herself off, her chest tighter than a compressed spring, unable to finish that thought, voice that fear. 

Her heartbeat filled the ensuing silence while she stared down at his hand holding tight to hers. A few months - no, _weeks_ \- ago, Felix taking her hand like this would’ve been unthinkable, a fragment of a fantasy she never thought she’d live out. Now it only just settled her nerves, and she willed herself to seek the silhouette of his face with her eyes. 

“It was never really about your singing, Annette,” Felix confessed in a low voice that sent a shiver up her spine. “I—you’re right, maybe it’s how you caught my...attention, but it’s not _why_ I—why I’m with you.”

Annette didn’t dare to believe it, not without some sort of proof. “Then why?” she said. “I’m sorry, I have to know, Felix.”

A sigh burst from him. “Is it not enough to tell you I want to be here, with you?” As the words left him his arm wrapped around her shoulders, and she let him tug her against him. 

Her heart thought it was enough, judging by all the tripping it did against her ribs. Clumsy as her, Annette guessed. But it wasn’t enough to banish her doubt, that little thorn that caught in her and refused all her efforts to tug it out. 

It only stuck deeper, until it was all Annette could think about. 

“Not this time,” she admitted. But she turned her hand and wove her fingers through his before bringing his knuckles to her lips. “Please tell me the rest.”

Felix’s sigh warmed her forehead, and his chest vibrated against her as he said, “Fine. All right.”

“Don’t have to sound so put out,” Annette said, trying to regain some of their usual balance. Guilt began to niggle at her too, that she would be so selfish to demand reassurance - after waking him up too - for something so ephemeral. “I...I’m sorry, I know you have trouble with words sometimes, so if you can’t now it’s—”

“No, if it’s something keeping you awake,” Felix said, “then it’s important.”

Her breath caught, and she squeezed his hand and leaned into him. 

“You’re...it’s not about your singing, or your voice,” he explained in a halting voice. “It’s...all of you. You’re...kind, and stubborn, and—and you work harder than anyone else I know.”

Annette doubted that; the army was full of hard workers, particularly their old classmates, but she allowed herself a smile that wasn’t feigned or strained. 

“You’re soft but you don’t let it make you weak,” Felix said as his other hand stroked up her arm. “Watching you fight takes... _my_ breath away.”

A snort escaped her, because of course he liked the way she fought, but when he frowned at her she smiled and cupped his jaw. 

“I like...when you smile like that, for me,” he said. “I like how you are when we’re alone, or when no one’s watching, and you seem more...free and uncaring.”

“Uncaring?” Annette said, raising an eyebrow even as warmth curled in her chest. 

Felix shrugged. “Like you’re more...relaxed,” he said. “Sometimes you seem to wilt around other people, like when you’re trying to impress them. I...I hate seeing that.”

“Oh, I—I’m not trying to impress them,” she argued. “I’m trying to put my best foot forward. Why do they need to know if I like dancing to my silly songs when I’m alone?”

“I…” To her surprise Felix smiled. “I guess I like that you keep that to yourself. And...you’re right. You’re better at a lot of things that I’ve always struggled with, even important things.”

“Important things?”

“Magic, and - as much as I don’t want to admit it - manners.”

A giggle burst from her. To hear Felix of all people admit that _manners_ were important...well, it defied belief. “You can get better at some things, you know,” Annette noted. She turned around and wrapped her arms around his middle, warm and giddy and...relieved, if for the moment. “Thank you, Felix.”

He held her close, held her tight, his chin resting on the top of her head. “But I’m not finished,” he said. 

“What else is left?” she said. 

He didn’t answer immediately, but his heart beat faster under her ear. “I think you’re—” He broke off, his grip on her tightening. “You’re...pretty.”

Annette’s face burned, though she tried to lift away to look at him, more than a little curious if Felix was blushing too. But his hand rested on the back of her head, pressing her closer, as if the last thing he wanted was for her to look at him. 

“Pretty,” she echoed. Even with her face bare of makeup, with her hair mussed from sleep, with her dress torn and bloodstained and singed after battles?

She felt more than saw Felix nod. “I like when your face is the first I see in the morning,” he added. “I...you remind me why I’m here, what’s at stake, why I...why I want to be strong.”

When he shuddered Annette gripped at the back of his sleep shirt. Bizarrely a lump stuck in her throat, and shame again bit at her, that she’d doubted Felix, that she’d thought someone like him - who grew attached to someone so rarely, who never gave anything of himself to anyone he didn’t think deserved it - would bother with her without a powerful...regard. 

Did that mean he wanted a future with her too? Annette was almost too afraid to ask, especially after he’d already more or less laid himself bare in a way he never had, not with her, before. 

“I’ll protect you too, Felix,” Annette promised, somehow managing to keep the tears from her voice. “I want—I want this, us, to last.”

His hands, rough with calluses and scars but with a gentleness that made her shiver, cupped her face and tilted it backwards. His eyes were wide as if he understood something new, but then his gaze sharpened into something...intense. 

“I...I’m not leaving you,” he said. “I—make sure you don’t leave me either.”

“No,” Annette said. Her eyes slipped shut as she covered his hands with hers, as her heart beat faster. “Never.”

This time before she drifted off to sleep, warm and content in Felix’s arms and with the promise of more kisses come morning, she smiled to herself and thought of all the nights she would have him to help silence her troublesome thoughts. 

**Author's Note:**

> Annette has so many insecurities ;_;


End file.
